Inorganic porous materials are at the foundation of broad applications such as molecular sieves, ion exchangers and catalysts. Zeolites and aluminosilicate mesoporous materials constitute the vast majority of the materials in this class. Aerogels are another kind of porous inorganic polymer in which nano-sized blocks are interconnected to yield high internal surface areas, low densities, and large open pores. Although the sol-gel chemistry of oxide-based materials (e.g., SiO2, Al2O3 and TiO2, etc.) is well known, successful attempts to apply this approach to non-oxide-based systems, especially to chalcogenides, are quite rare. Such systems would be capable of combining the electronic properties of chalcogenides with internal porosity, which could lead to new fields of study.